“Same Sex Sells”
January 8, 2008A new interesting trend has evolved during last couple of years.
Diversification of advertisments has successfully hit the Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transexual Community as well..
“Commercial Closet Association, a New York City-based group that counsels firms on smarter representation of gays in advertising, logged 436 gay-themed ads in global gay and mainstream media last year — around a fifth of which appeared in Europe — versus around 350 in 2003.” (A New Ad Adage: Same Sex Sells) Possibly, the most famous ice-breaker of Gay themed Commercials would be the duo of two very talented fashion designers, Who dress celebrities like Madonna, Kylie Minoque etc – Dolce and Gabbana. Both Domenico Dolce and Stefano Gabbana are gay. And so proud of it that they are not ashamed to be one of the first people to use homesexuals in the ads. But behind the reason of using the gay couples is something more than just the fact of homosexual orientation of both famous and desired designers.According to the Time’s Article “A New Ad Adage: Same Sex Sells“, there are more reasons why the number of gay themed commercials is growing.
Firstly, regarding the same source: “ Openly gay men in full-time jobs earn $18,000 a year more than the male national average; among lesbians, the premium is $12,000.“ So the main reason why companies started focusing on the minority group of gays and lesbians might be that in some cases gays and lesbians tend to be earning more money (and usually have just the partner or very close friends to spend it on). The next fact might be that gays and lesbians create long-time relationship with brands. Gays make more money and spend more money. So the brands want to attract them. But Dolce and Gabbana are not the only ones using this strategy. Moreover, products as Tylenol PM, L’Oreal and Guiness have featured their ads with gay theme. Lastly I will mention just the Tylenol PM’s ad, which features a sleepless and topless men couple in bed with the slogans: “His backache is keeping him up“ and “His boyfriend’s backache is keeping him up.” The whole Times article can be found here: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1220477-1,00.html
DOLCE & GABBANA VIDEOS FEATURING GAY COUPLES
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